Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA 2023)
Definition
India's evidence law replacing the Indian Evidence Act 1872, governing admissibility of expert testimony (Section 39) including forensic phonetic evidence. Does not impose a Daubert-equivalent science-validation gatekeeping requirement, leaving admissibility of phonetic evidence to case-by-case judicial discretion.
- Jurisdiction
- India
- Replaces
- Indian Evidence Act 1872
- Expert opinion clause
- Section 39
- Gatekeeping standard
- No Daubert-equivalent requirement
Common questions
How does BSA 2023 treat forensic phonetic evidence specifically?+
The Act does not name phonetic evidence separately; it is admitted under the general expert-opinion provision in Section 39, leaving the court to weigh the reliability and qualifications behind a voice comparison or speaker identification report on a case-by-case basis.
What is the practical effect of having no Daubert-equivalent standard?+
Without a mandatory pre-trial reliability hearing, a judge can admit expert evidence more readily than under a stricter gatekeeping regime, which places more weight on cross-examination and the weighing of evidence at trial to expose methodological weaknesses.
Is BSA 2023 the only law governing expert evidence in India?+
It is the primary evidence statute, but procedural aspects of calling and examining expert witnesses also interact with the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, the replacement for the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Related terms
- Code-Switching
- Shifting between different registers or even different languages within an interaction, often as a signal of role or authority. An interviewer who...
- Criminal Procedure Rules Part 19
- The English and Welsh procedural rules governing expert evidence in criminal proceedings. They impose a duty on the expert to help the...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- DyViS Corpus
- The Dynamic Variability in Speech corpus (Nolan et al., 2009), a UK English speaker database collected under conditions designed to simulate forensic...
- Federal Rule of Evidence 702
- The US federal rule governing expert testimony. As amended through 2023, it requires that expert opinion be based on sufficient facts or...
- Formant
- A resonance peak in the vocal tract filter; F1 and F2 together characterise vowel quality (height and frontness), while F3 and higher...
- Frye Test
- An admissibility standard derived from Frye v United States (DC Cir 1923) requiring that a scientific technique must have gained general acceptance...
- Gatekeeping Role
- The function assigned to the trial judge under Daubert and FRE 702 to assess whether proposed expert evidence meets the reliability threshold...
- IAFPA (International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics)
- The professional organisation for forensic phoneticians, founded in 1991 following the collapse of the voiceprint paradigm. Maintains a code of conduct, annual...
- Lexical Tone
- A tone system in which F0 patterns carry word-meaning distinctions. Mandarin (four tones) and Punjabi (three tones) are the forensically most common...
- Long-Term Average Spectrum (LTAS)
- The averaged spectral energy distribution across a long recording segment, capturing the habitual spectral envelope of a speaker's voice. Useful as a...
- Praat
- Open-source acoustic analysis software developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink at the University of Amsterdam, used by virtually all forensic phoneticians...
Explained in these topics
- Admissibility Standards Around the WorldThe Indian statute that replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 39 governs opinions of experts specially skilled in science, art, foreign law, handwriti...
- Forensic Phonetics: Multi-Language and Cross-Linguistic Casework